CHAPTER XII.

LAST YEARS.

1846-1850.

More than four months elapsed after Mr. and Mrs. Judson parted from

their friends in Boston before they arrived at Maulmain. The passage,

though long, was pleasant. Under date of November 27, 1846, Mr. Judson

writes to his friend, Mr. Gardner Colby:

“One hundred and thirty-nine days from Boston, and the mountains of

Burmah appear in the horizon. None ever had a pleasanter passage than

we have been favored with, though rather long, from the prevalence of

head-winds. The _Faneuil Hall_ was a good sailer, an excellent

sea-boat, and furnished with the best accommodations. The table was

well supplied, and the captain endeared himself to us, not only by

unremitting kindness, but by the interchange of congenial sentiments

and feelings on the subject of religion. Two services on Lord’s days,

the one a Bible-class in the saloon, and the other, public worship on

deck with the crew, together with evening worship every day, have

given the character of a Bethel to our floating home.

“In regard to my studies, I have not much to boast of. Not having my

native assistants with me, I have not ventured _to go forward_ in the

dictionary, but have employed myself in revising and transcribing for

the press the first half of the English and Burmese part, that had

been previously sketched out. This work I had hardly completed when

the cry of Land, ho! saluted my ears.”

In passing the Island of St. Helena, his thoughts dwelt tenderly upon

her who, like Rachel of old, had died “on the way, when it was but a

little way to go unto Ephrath.”

“The precipitous, rocky cliffs, however, that form the outline of that

spot on the ocean, the narrow ravine winding between them and leading

to the walled mansion of the dead, the low, overshadowing tree, and

the swelling turf, marked, perhaps, by the white gravestones, are all

distinctly before me. And, did the misty mythology of antiquity still

obtain, I could fancy the spirit of the departed sitting on one of the

cloud-wrapped peaks that overhang her grave, and pensively observing

the _Faneuil Hall_ on her circuitous route to the south-east. ‘Why are

you wheeling away at such a distance from me and my lonely dwelling?

The dear little ones that I left in your charge, where are they? And

who—what slender form is that I see at your side, occupying the place

that once was mine?’ But the mistiness and darkness of pagan mythology

have been dispelled by beams of light from those higher heights where

she is really sitting. And thence, if departed spirits take cognizance

of things on earth, she sees, with satisfaction, that I am _hastening_

back to the field of our common labors. She sees, with delight and

gratitude to God, that all her children are situated in precise

accordance with her last wishes and prayers. And glad she is to see me

returning, not unattended.

“Farewell, rock of the ocean. I thank thee that thou hast given me a

‘place where I might bury my dead.’ Blessings on the dear friends of

the Saviour who dwell there. And, if any of the surviving children of

the departed should ever enjoy the privilege, which is denied me, of

visiting and shedding a tear over her grave, may a double portion of

her heavenly spirit descend and rest upon them.”

When off the Isle of France, he wrote:

“About thirty-three years ago I went with my dear wife to the populous

city of the dead in Port Louis, on the adjacent island, to visit the

new-made grave of Harriet Newell, the first American missionary who

left this world for heaven. It has been my privilege, twice since, to

make a pilgrimage to the same spot. The last time, my second departed

one expected to find her resting-place by the side of Mrs. Newell; but

the grave was digging in another island. It is a thought that presses

on me at this moment, how little the missionary who leaves his native

land can calculate on his final resting-place. Out of twenty-five

missionaries, male and female, with whom I have been associated, and

who have gone before me, five or six only found their graves in those

places to which they were first sent. Strangers and pilgrims, they had

no abiding-place on earth; they sought a permanent abode beyond the

skies; and they sought to show the way thither to multitudes who were

groping in darkness, and saw it not.

“At last the promontory of Amherst loomed into sight. And now, on the

green bank just beyond, I discern, with a telescope, the small

enclosure which contains the sleeping-place of my dear Ann and her

daughter Maria. Like my missionary associates, the members of my own

family are scattered far and wide; for the mounds that mark their

graves stud the burial-places of Rangoon, Amherst, Maulmain,

Serampore, and St. Helena. What other place shall next be added to the

list?

“Above eighteen months ago I sailed from these shores with a heavy

heart, distressed at leaving my friends and my work, and appalled at

the prospect of impending death. With mingled emotions I now return.

But these things suit rather the eye and the ear of private friends. I

will only add my fervent wish that the Heaven-blessed land where I

have been so warmly received during my late brief visit may pour forth

her representatives, her wealth, and her prayers, to enlighten and

enrich this my adopted land, whose shores are just now greeting my

eyes.”

On the 30th of November he arrived at Maulmain, and clasped once more in

his arms his little children, Henry and Edward, from whom he had parted

more than eighteen months before. But, alas! one little wan face was

missing.

He wrote to his sister:

“I have set up housekeeping in my old house; and it seems like home,

notwithstanding the devastation that death and removal have made.

Emily makes one of the best wives and kindest mothers to the children

that ever man was blessed with. I wish you were here to make one of

the family; but I suppose that can not be. I shall now go on with the

dictionary and other missionary work as usual. Your likeness is an

excellent one. I keep that and the children’s by me constantly. Shall

I ever forget that last parting in Boston? No, never, till we meet in

heaven.”

And in a fond letter to his boys in America, he gives a glimpse of the

little home in Maulmain from which unbending necessity had exiled them

forever:

“MAULMAIN, _December_ 20, 1846.

“I can hardly realize that I am sitting in the old house, where we all

lived together so long; and now your mamma, yourselves, your sister

Abby Ann, and little Charlie are gone. It is now evening. I am writing

in the hall where I used to sit and study, when your mamma had gone

down the coast with Captain and Mrs. Durand. Your new mamma has just

put your little brothers, Henry and Edward, to bed. They lie in the

room where you used to sleep before you removed to the corner room.

Henry is singing and talking aloud to himself; and what do you think

he is saying? Your new mamma has just called me to listen. ‘My own

mamma went away, away in a boat. And then she got wings and went up.

And Charlie, too, went up, and they are flying above the moon and the

stars.’ I preach in the chapel, as I used to do, but have not yet

begun to work at the dictionary; for we have been very busy seeing

company and getting our house and things in order. Everything looks as

it used to do when you were here.... We found Henry in this place,

when we arrived. My dear boys, I don’t know when I shall see you

again. If I ever should, you will not be the dear little fellows I

left at Worcester. But I hope that as you grow larger, and change the

features that are now so deeply engraven on my heart, you will also

grow wiser and better, and become more worthy of my fondest love. That

you will give your hearts to the Saviour is my most earnest desire.

Love your dear uncle and aunt Newton. Mind all they say, and ever try

to please them.”

Upon his return Mr. Judson found that the mission had flourished during

his absence, and was able to send an encouraging report to the

Corresponding Secretary.

“The native church, under the care of brother Stevens, is not much

enlarged, but it is much improved, in consequence of the exclusion of

several unworthy members, and the admission of more promising

characters, chiefly from among the children of the converts. Brother

Howard’s school has greatly improved both in numbers and in

qualifications. Brother Binney’s school, which was just beginning when

I left, has attained a high degree of respectability and usefulness.

The Karen missionaries and their disciples are mostly absent from

Maulmain at this season; but I understand that prospects in that

department of the mission were never more encouraging. The

printing-office and the secular business of the mission are managed by

brother Ranney with promptitude and efficiency. Brother Haswell

resides here at present, superintending the printing of the New

Testament in the Peguan, and is preaching on all occasions. Brother

Stilson is also here, making and superintending the printing of

elementary books for schools in the Burman—a work for which he has a

peculiar tact and _penchant_.”

But for himself he still ardently cherished the purpose to enter Burmah

proper. His eye was upon his old field, Rangoon. To be sure, the new

Burman king was a bigoted Buddhist, and therefore bitterly opposed to

the propagation of the Christian religion. But in Maulmain there were

laborers enough; while in Rangoon he would be favorably situated for

completing the dictionary, as he would there have access to learned men,

and also to books not to be found in Maulmain. Moreover, he hoped that

Burman intolerance might at last yield, and he was eager to press into

the interior of the empire and establish a mission in Ava, the scene of

his sufferings.

Even before leaving America he had written to the Corresponding

Secretary on this point:

“The accounts of the late revolution in Burmah are so contradictory,

and the prospect of more toleration so indefinite, that no certain

expectation can well be entertained. It is possible, however, that, on

my arriving in Maulmain, there may be an opening for me to proceed to

Ava. There is sometimes a tide in affairs which, once lost, returns

not again. Have the Board sufficient confidence in me to authorize me,

by an overland dispatch which shall meet me on arriving in Maulmain,

to attempt a mission at Ava, without waiting for further permission,

or being under the necessity of debating the matter with other

missionaries, who may demur, for want of something express from the

Board?

“The dictionary would not be done _so soon_, if I should go to Ava;

but it would be done _much better_, by means of the aids which the

capital would furnish.”

Impelled by these motives Mr. and Mrs. Judson, taking with them their

two little boys, embarked at Maulmain for Rangoon on February 15, 1847.

Only two months and a half had passed since their return from America.

They might have been pardoned had they remained longer in the society of

their missionary associates in Maulmain. But it was not their purpose to

seek their own pleasure. They willingly left the twilight of Maulmain,

in order to penetrate the dense darkness of Rangoon, although, as Mr.

Judson wrote, “it seemed harder for him to leave Maulmain for Rangoon

than to leave Boston for Maulmain.”

After a voyage of five days they and their two children arrived in

Rangoon. Mr. Judson had previously made a visit there alone, in order

“to ascertain the state of things in Burmah more definitely before

making an attempt to settle there.” He had on that occasion hired, for

fifty rupees[67] a month, the upper part of a large brick house, which

Mrs. Judson subsequently named “Bat Castle.” He describes it as—

“A place dreary indeed, and destitute of almost all outward comforts,

but one which will afford an opportunity of building up the feeble

church by private efforts, and of seizing the first opening for more

public efforts that God in His providence may present, in answer to

the prayers of His people in beloved, far-distant America.”

Before engaging the house he wrote to Mrs. Judson: “The place looks as

gloomy as a prison.... I shrink at taking you and the children into such

a den, and fear you would pine and die in it.” It was into this

forbidding abode that Mr. Judson introduced the lady to whom he had been

so recently married. He wrote:

“We have had a grand bat hunt yesterday and to-day—bagged two hundred

and fifty, and calculate to make up a round thousand before we have

done. We find that, in hiring the upper story of this den, we secured

the lower moiety only, the upper moiety thereof being preoccupied by a

thriving colony of vagabonds, who flare up through the night with a

vengeance, and the sound of their wings is as the sound of many

waters, yea, as the sound of your boasted Yankee Niagara; so that

sleep departs from your eyes, and slumber from our eyelids. But we are

reading them some lessons which we hope will be profitable to all

parties concerned.”

But we are indebted to Mrs. Judson’s pen, in a letter to her younger

sister, for a still more vivid portraiture of “Bat Castle”:

“BAT CASTLE (Rangoon), _March_ 15, 1847.

“DEAR KITTY: I write you from walls as massive as any you read of in

old stories and a great deal uglier—the very eyeball and heart-core of

an old white-bearded Mussulman. Think of me in an immense brick house

with rooms as large as the entire ‘loggery’ (our centre room is twice

as large, and has _no_ window), and only one small window apiece. When

I speak of windows, do not think I make any allusion to glass—of

course not. The windows (holes) are closed by means of heavy board or

plank shutters, tinned over on the outside, as a preventive of fire.

The bamboo houses of the natives here are like flax or tinder, and the

foreigners, who have more than the one cloth which Burmans wrap about

the body, and the mat they sleep on, dare live in nothing but brick.

Imagine us, then, on the second floor of this immense den, with nine

rooms at our command, the smallest of which (bathing-room and a kind

of pantry) are, I think, quite as large as your dining-room, and the

rest very much larger. Part of the floors are of brick, and part of

boards; but old ‘Green Turban’ whitewashed them all, with the walls,

before we came, because the Doctor told him, when he was over here,

that he must ‘make the house shine for madam.’ He did make it shine

with a vengeance, between whitewashing and greasing. They oil

furniture in this country, as Americans do mahogany; but all his doors

and other woodwork were fairly dripping, and we have not got rid of

the smell yet; nor, with all our rubbing, is it quite safe to hold too

long on the door. The partitions are all of brick, and very thick, and

the door-sills are _built up_, so that I go over them at three or four

steps, Henry mounts and falls off, and Edward gets on all-fours, and

accomplishes the pass with more safety. The floor overhead is quite

low, and the beams, which are frequent, afford shelter to thousands

and thousands of bats, that disturb us in the daytime only by a little

cricket-like music, but in the night—oh, if you could only hear them

carouse! The mosquito curtains are our only safeguard; and getting up

is horrible. The other night I awoke faint, with a feeling of

suffocation; and without waiting to think jumped out on the floor. You

would have thought ‘Old Nick’ himself had come after you, for, of

course, you believe these firm friends of the _ladies of the

broomstick_ incipient imps. If there is nothing wickeder about them

than about the little sparrows that come in immense swarms to the same

beams, pray what do they do all through the hours of darkness, and why

do they circle and whizz about a poor mortal’s head, flap their

villainous wings in one’s face, and then whisk away, as if

_snickering_ at the annoyance? We have had men at work nearly a week

trying to thin them out, and have killed a great many hundreds; but I

suppose their little demoniac souls come back, each with an attendant,

for I am sure there are twice as many as at first. Everything, walls,

tables, chairs, etc., are stained by them. Besides the bats, we are

blessed with our full share of cockroaches, beetles, spiders, lizards,

rats, ants, mosquitoes, and bed-bugs. With the last the woodwork is

all alive, and the ants troop over the house in great droves, though

there are scattering ones beside. Perhaps twenty have crossed my paper

since I have been writing. Only one cockroach has paid me a visit, but

the neglect of these gentlemen has been fully made up by a company of

black bugs about the size of the end of your little finger—nameless

adventurers.”...

The Judsons were scarcely settled in these forbidding quarters when they

learned that the house in Maulmain, where they had deposited their best

clothing and most valuable goods—many of them presents from dear friends

whom they were to see no more—had taken fire and had been burned to the

ground with all its contents. They had brought but a few articles with

them, not being willing to trust the most valuable part of their

personal effects to the rapacious Government at Rangoon. They had

thought it best to draw their supplies from Maulmain, and now the

precious consignment of articles which they had brought with them from

their dear native land had been consumed in the flames. But Mr. Judson

had long since mastered the science of contentment. He had been

instructed both “to be full and to be hungry; both to abound and to

suffer need.” He wrote to the Rev. E. A. Stevens, a beloved

fellow-sufferer in this calamity:

“RANGOON, _March_ 2, 1847.

“‘The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; _blessed be the name of

the Lord_.’ My heart overflows with gratitude, and my eyes with tears,

as I pen these precious inspired words. There are some other lines,

quaint in garb, but rich in core, that are worth more than all your

house and contents:

“‘Blessed be God for all,

For all things here below;

For every loss and every cross

To my advantage grow.’

“But I sympathize with you and dear sister Stevens. Brother Bullard

has also sustained a heavy loss. Brother Brayton’s will not, on the

whole, be any great loss. As to me—the leeks and onions that were

packed up in those two valuable boxes, worth about seven or eight

hundred rupees, were very bright to the eye and soft to the feel; and

many of them we shall greatly need if we live a year or two longer;

but they have gone to dust and ashes, where I have seen many bright,

dear eyes go, to rescue any pair of which I would have given those

boxes ten times over.

“I am glad and thankful that the New Testament and the manuscripts are

not wholly lost, though some are. And I am glad that so much interest

has been excited in the Christian community at Maulmain. I am glad,

also, that my house was empty, and ready to afford you immediate

shelter.

“We arrived here the Saturday after leaving Maulmain, and got our

things through the custom-house on the next Monday, a week ago

yesterday. We now begin to feel a little settled, and are about

commencing a routine of study, and, I may add, missionary labor; for

though the Burmese converts are few and timid, the Karens flock in

from different parts, and occupy a good deal of my time. All the men

understand Burman pretty well, and I have had some interesting

meetings among them....

“I have recommenced the work of the dictionary, which has been

suspended nearly two years. Why has this grievous interruption been

permitted, and all this precious time lost? And why are our houses and

property allowed to be burned up? And why are those most dear to us,

and most qualified to be useful in the cause, torn from our arms and

dashed into the grave, and all their knowledge and qualification with

them? Because infinite wisdom and love will have it so. Because it is

best for us, and best for them, and best for the cause, and best for

the interests of eternity, that it should be so. And blessed be God,

we know it, and are thankful, and rejoice, and say, Glory be to God.”

Missionary operations in Rangoon were obstructed from the very outset by

the intolerance of the Burmese Government. It must be remembered that

the missionaries were no longer under the protection of the English

flag, as they had been at Maulmain. They were exposed to the barbarities

of a bigoted and unlimited despotism. The Burman monarch and his younger

brother, the heir apparent, were both rigid Buddhists. And the

administration of the Government, though more friendly to strangers, had

become more doggedly intolerant of Christianity than that of the late

king Tharawadi. Buddhism was in full force throughout the empire, and

the prospects of a missionary were never darker. The vice-governor of

Rangoon, who was at that time acting-governor, is described by Mr.

Judson as being the most ferocious, bloodthirsty monster he had ever

known in Burmah. His house and court-yard resounded day and night with

the screams of people under torture.

“Even foreigners,” Mr. Judson wrote, “are not beyond his grasp. He

lately wreaked his rage on some Armenians and Mussulmans, and one of

the latter class died in the hands of a subordinate officer. His crime

was quite a venial one; but in order to extort money, he was tortured

so barbarously that the blood streamed from his mouth, and he was dead

in an hour.”

It must be remembered that Mr. Judson had been received and patronized

by the Government, not as a missionary or propagator of religion, but as

the priest of a foreign religion, ministering to the foreigners in the

place.

Missionary operations, accordingly, had to be conducted with the utmost

secrecy. Any known attempt at proselyting would have been instantly

amenable at the criminal tribunal, and would probably have been punished

by the imprisonment or death of the proselyte, and the banishment of the

missionary. Nothing but a wholesome fear of the British Government kept

these bloodthirsty wretches from the throat of the missionary himself.

Every step was cautious—every movement slow. Mrs. Judson quietly pursued

the two tasks of learning the language and writing a Memorial of Mrs.

Sarah Boardman Judson, which was finished during this trying period at

Rangoon. Mr. Judson kept at work on the dictionary, while he gathered

for secret worship the few scattered members of the native church, and

the inquirers who, at the risk of imprisonment and death, visited him by

night. He thus wrote to the Hon. Heman Lincoln and family:

.... “From this land of darkness and intolerance I address a line to

you, my dear, very dear friends, in blessed America, in bright,

beautiful Boston and vicinity. It seems like an Elysian vision, that I

have so lately seen your happy dwellings and elegant surroundings—a

vision, however, dispelled instantly by a crushing nightmare feeling,

on looking round upon the wretched habitations, the rude, filthy

population, the towering pagodas, and the swarms of well-fed priests

which everywhere here pain the eye and the heart. Buddhism has come

out in full bloom. The few traces of Christianity discoverable in the

early stages of the mission seem almost obliterated. The present king

and his brother, the heir presumptive, are devoted Buddhists,

especially the latter. He begs his elder brother to allow him to turn

priest, that he may gratify his pious propensities; and on being

refused, he does, poor man! all that he can. He descends from his

prince-regal seat, pounds and winnows the rice with his own hands,

washes and boils it in his own cook-house, and then, on bended knees,

presents it to the priests. This strong pulsation at the heart has

thrown fresh blood throughout the once shrivelled system of the

national superstition; and now every one vies with his neighbor in

building pagodas and making offerings to the priests. What can one

poor missionary effect, accompanied by his yet speechless wife, and

followed by three men and one woman from Maulmain, and summoning to

his aid the aged pastor of Rangoon and eight or ten surviving members

of the church? But as the Mussulman says, _God is great_. He sitteth

on the heavens, he setteth His foot on the earth, and the inhabitants

are as grasshoppers before Him. He dwelleth also in the humble and

contrite soul; and the rays of indwelling glory appear more

resplendent, gleaming through the chinks of the humble tenement. O for

that humility and contrition, O for that simplicity of faith, which

will secure the indwelling glory! May such sinners as we are hope for

such a blessing? O help us with your prayers, ye who sit under the

droppings of the sanctuary, and are sometimes allowed to approach the

presence; O Thou that hearest prayer, help Thou our unbelief!

“Last Sabbath was our stated communion season, occurring once in four

months. No alcoholic liquor can be procured in this place, the

importation of all such being strictly forbidden. Our wine was a

decoction of raisins, the unadulterated juice of the grape. Ten

Burmans, one Karen, and two Americans came around the lowly, glorious

board. To-day I had about the same number of disciples, and several

listeners, two of whom remained long after worship, and, with two

others whom I have found since arriving here, make up the small number

of _four hopeful inquirers_. But all our operations are conducted in

secrecy. I have been introduced to the Government, not as a

missionary—though the governor and the vice-governor both knew me well

from old acquaintance—but as a minister of a foreign religion,

ministering to foreigners in the place, and as a lexicographer,

laboring to promote the literature of both nations! In one room,

therefore, of the upper story of the brick house—for which upper story

I am obliged to pay fifty rupees a month—will the Christian public

bear me out in this extra expense?—I have paraded my lexicographical

apparatus, and commenced hammering at the anvil of the dictionary,

which has hardly resounded with my blows for two years past; two

years, alas! lost, lost, in tossing on the sea, closing dear eyes,

digging graves, rending heartstrings, and feeling about for new ones.

Thanks be to God, I have a sweet little family around me once more—F.

F., Harry, and Eddy. God is not only ‘great,’ but good. God is love.

And He can change our hard, selfish hearts, and make them full of

love. Do I not love you, dear friends? Shall I see you no more? Yes,

in heaven, whither we are fast hastening.”

The condition of the missionaries in Rangoon was made still more

distressing by sickness. The great brick house became a hospital. One

member of the family after another was prostrated by disease. Their

maladies were also aggravated by the want of nourishing food.

Mrs. Judson gives an interesting reminiscence of this doleful episode in

Rangoon:

“In the meantime the rainy season set in; and it proved a season of

unusual sickliness, even for that sickly place. To add still more to

the uncomfortableness of our situation, the season for the Buddhistic

Lent, which continues several months, came round; and, probably for

the first time in fifty years, foreigners were so far compelled to

observe it as to abstain from eating flesh or fowl. If we had known of

the prohibition in season, we could have been prepared; but it took us

quite by surprise. A few fish were exhibited in the bazaar; but it was

so disreputable to trade, even in these, that they could scarcely be

found, except in a half-putrid state. The only baker in town left soon

after our arrival; and we were forced to live almost exclusively on

boiled rice and fruits. To the former I unfortunately took an

unconquerable disgust; and the latter proved unwholesome to all of us.

One child was seized with erysipelas; the other with a complication of

diseases brought on, as we supposed, by the meagre diet, and exposure

to the damp winds; and Dr. Judson himself had a most violent attack of

dysentery, which kept him from his study-table six weeks. For myself,

my appetite had failed in proportion to the means of gratifying it;

so, without being ill, I was so reduced in strength as often, in

walking across the room, to fall, or rather slide, down on the floor,

not from faintness, but sheer physical weakness. One of the assistants

also took the fever; and the nurse I brought from Maulmain, the only

woman besides myself in the household, became seriously ill. Of course

we had no medical adviser; and if we had desired it ever so much, we

could not get away, as the monsoon was now at its height, and the

small native vessels in the harbor were not only without

accommodations for invalids, but too frail to be trusted with the

freight of human lives.”

And thus again to her friends in America she wrote:

“RANGOON, _June_ 16, 1847.

“Trouble on trouble—trouble on trouble! You could scarce imagine, dear

aunt Cynthia, people in a worse condition than we are now. Last

Saturday evening Dr. J. came into my room with red eyes and a voice

all tremulous with weeping. ‘We must be at the worst now,’ he said;

‘and in all my troubles in this dreadful country, I never before

looked on so discouraging a prospect. We are hunted down here like

wild beasts; watched by Government and plotted against by Catholic

priests. The churches at home have made no provision for our going to

Ava, the governor is importuned to send us out of the country, the

monsoon is raging, and we could not go to Maulmain if we wished, and

you are failing every day—it seems to me dying before my eyes—without

the possibility of obtaining either medicines or a physician.”...

To what straits the family was reduced for food may be seen in the

following sketch from Mrs. Judson’s pen:

“Our milk is a mixture of buffaloes’ milk, water, and something else

which we can not make out. We have changed our milk-woman several

times, but it does no good. The butter we make from it is like lard

with flakes of tallow. But it is useless to write about these

things—you can get no idea. I must tell you, however, of the grand

dinner we had one day. ‘You must contrive and get something that mamma

can eat,’ the doctor said to our Burmese purveyor; ‘she will starve to

death.’ ‘What shall I get?’ ‘Anything.’ ‘Anything?’ ‘Anything.’ Well,

we did have a capital dinner, though we tried in vain to find out by

the bones what it was. Henry said it was _touk-tahs_, a species of

lizard, and I should have thought so too, if the little animal had

been of a fleshy consistence. Cook said he _didn’t know_, but he

grinned a horrible grin which made my stomach heave a little,

notwithstanding the deliciousness of the meat. In the evening we

called Mr. Bazaar-man. ‘What did we have for dinner to-day?’ ‘Were

they good?’ ‘Excellent.’ A tremendous explosion of laughter, in which

the cook from his dish-room joined as loud as he dared. ‘What were

they?’ ‘_Rats!_’ A common servant would not have played such a trick,

but it was one of the doctor’s assistants who goes to bazaar for us.

You know the Chinese consider rats a great delicacy, and he bought

them at one of their shops.”

But amid all the discouragements and sufferings of his life in Rangoon,

Mr. Judson did not lapse into despondency. He wrote to a friend:

“My sojourn in Rangoon, though tedious and trying in some respects, I

regard as one of the brightest spots, one of the greenest oases in the

diversified wilderness of my life. May God make me thankful for all

the blessings which have hitherto fallen to my lot, and for the hope

of those richer blessings which are just concealed by the cloud of

sense from our spiritual vision. If this world is so happy, what must

heaven be? And as to trials, let us bear up under them, remembering

that if we suffer for Christ’s sake, with Him we shall reign.”

At last, however, the intolerance of the Government became so fierce

that there was no hope of retaining a foothold in Rangoon, without going

to Ava in order to secure the favor of the royal court.

“One Saturday morning,” says Mrs. Judson, “we were startled by some

private intimations that the bloody ray-woon, as one of the

vice-governors was called, had his eye on us; and a little before

evening the hints were fully confirmed. We learned from an undoubted

source that a police guard had been stationed in the vicinity of our

house, with orders to seize every native, not known to be a servant of

the house, seen coming out of it. We inferred that their policy was

not to disturb _us_ at present, but the blow was first to fall on the

poor Christians. Several Karens were stopping with us, and in addition

to our usual company of worshippers quite a number of invited friends

and strangers had promised to be with us on the next day. The church

had been making individual efforts to enlarge the congregation. I

shall never forget the expression of my husband’s face, as though

really piercing to the invisible, when he exclaimed, ‘I tell you, if

we had but the power to see them, the air above us is thick with

contending spirits—the good and the bad, striving for the mastery. I

know where final victory lies, but the struggle may be a long one.’

There was not much time for talking, however. He communicated the

state of things, as far as he thought expedient, to his two native

assistants, and sent them out to warn the nearer worshippers. In this,

great caution was necessary, in order to prevent a panic; and I

suppose that the Rangoon Christians have never, to this day, known the

extent of their danger. As the assistants, by an especial arrangement,

did not return till after our landlord’s hour for closing the gate,

Dr. Judson, with some difficulty, got the key into his own possession;

and so, in the first gray of the morning, the Karens were guided out

of town, and advised to return to the jungle. The last place to which

the assistants carried their warning, on Sunday morning, was a little

village five miles from Rangoon, where they remained till toward

evening. Dr. Judson was afraid of compromising the Christians by going

to any of their houses that day; but he had advised them, through the

assistants, how to hold worship, and we knew of several places where

little knots of men and women were gathered for prayer.

“These demonstrations on the part of Government were followed up by a

series of petty annoyances and insults, which effectually precluded

the possibility of accomplishing much good. The governor was friendly,

but weak and cowardly; and we soon found that his protection was

really worthless, except as he could hold the petty officers in awe.

The bloody ray-woon laughed at his authority, and once actually

assembled the troops against him, when the poor governor yielded. Both

Christians and inquirers, however, still came to us in private; and

many a man, who refused to take even a book from the teacher’s hands,

would watch his opportunity, when going out, to snatch one from a box

placed near the door for that purpose, and hide it in his dress,

congratulating himself, no doubt, that he was unsuspected even by us.”

Under these circumstances, the only hope lay in a visit to Ava. Mr.

Judson’s heart was set upon this. He believed that it was the only way

by which the Gospel could be established in Burmah proper; besides, in

the completion of his dictionary, he desired to avail himself of the

help of the scholars and the literature to be found only at the capital.

And bitter indeed was his disappointment when the policy of retrenchment

at home not only prevented his pushing on to Ava, but also compelled him

to retreat from Rangoon. It was with an almost broken heart that this

wise and intrepid leader, after this last fruitless effort to break the

serried ranks of Burman intolerance, returned to Maulmain in obedience

to the timid and narrow policy of his brethren in America. He wrote:

“I am persuaded, as I have been for years past, that the only way to

keep footing in Rangoon is to obtain some countenance at Ava. My

principal object in coming hither was to ascertain the practicability

and probable advantage of proceeding to the capital. The present

governor has given his permission, and the season favorable for going

up the river is not far distant. But at the approaching crisis, I find

myself destitute of the requisite means. The Board have approved the

measure, but have not been able to accompany their approval with the

needful remittance. On the contrary, I learn from my last letters from

Maulmain, that the annual appropriation for the Burman mission is ten

thousand rupees less than the current expenses require. The brethren

have been obliged to retrench in every department, instead of being

able to make an appropriation for a new enterprise. My extra expense

in Rangoon for assistants and house-rent is eighty-six rupees a month,

and they have been able to allow me seventeen and a half only. The

Mission Secretary writes me that for anything beyond that sum I must

look, not to their treasury, but to the Board. Instead, therefore, of

entering on a new and expensive undertaking, I find myself unable to

remain in Rangoon. But no; I might hope that an appeal home would

provide the means for remaining here; but in present circumstances,

unable to remain to any advantage without making friends at Ava, and

having no hope that the Board will be able to commence a new station,

or even sustain the old ones much longer, there remains nothing for me

but to fall back upon Maulmain.

“It is my growing conviction that the Baptist churches in America are

behind the age in missionary spirit. They now and then make a

spasmodic effort to throw off a nightmare debt of some years’

accumulation, and then sink back into unconscious repose. Then come

paralyzing orders to re-trench; new enterprises are checked in their

very conception, and applicants for missionary employ are advised to

wait, and soon become merged in the ministry at home. Several cases of

that sort I encountered during my late visit to the United States.

This state of things can not last always. The Baptist missions will

probably pass into the hands of other denominations, or be temporarily

suspended; and those who have occupied the van will fall back into the

rear. Nebuchadnezzar will be driven out from men, to eat grass like an

ox, until seven times pass over him. But he will, at length, recover

his senses, and be restored to the throne of his kingdom, and reign

over the whole earth.”

And how deeply his heroic nature mourned over the signal to retreat may

be seen in the description of the situation at Rangoon, as given by her

who shared-with him this bitter experience:

“Dr. Judson, when he could keep down his groans, used to speak of our

position as ‘the pass of the Splugen,’ and say he had no doubt we

should find sunny vales and fruited vineyards the other side. The

Government was certainly very bad, and our prospects, at the best,

misty; yet as soon as his health and the children’s began to amend,

our courage revived. We could not bear, now we had gone so far, and

been through so much, to think of retreating, without an effort to get

to Ava. For myself, as I believe is natural to the practical minds of

women, I sat down to examine the worst features of the case in detail.

We should of course be subjected to inconceivable annoyances, but we

must trust Providence to give us wise thoughts. We very likely might

be banished; but we could always hold ourselves in readiness to go,

and the loss of the few goods we had would not be much. Possibly we

should be imprisoned; but I did not think that very likely, and we

should always have means of informing our friends in Maulmain. Death

was the worst. We _must_ endure it some time. If it came a little

earlier, it would be in a good cause; and there would be faithful

Christians about us, who would never rest till they had taken the

children to Maulmain. The way seemed clear to me. Dr. Judson said it

was scarcely possible for us to encounter the complication of troubles

that we had already passed through in Rangoon. Ava, he said, was

always better governed than Rangoon; and this starving of people

during Lent had never occurred before in all his missionary-life, and

was not likely to occur again; besides, the rains were less heavy, and

consequently the rainy season less sickly. In addition to this, he had

a friend at court—a Burman of rank, who loved him, and was exerting

himself to the utmost to gain respect for the ‘wise man,’ and to

explain that Americans were not Englishmen. The plan of going to Ava

really seemed, on the whole, feasible. Accordingly Dr. Judson used his

first returning strength to call on the governor, to obtain permission

to go. Not that we could not go without permission; but it was polite

and conciliatory to ask, and in the permission would be an implied

exemption from annoyance in getting away, and protection—probably that

of a Government flag or official umbrella—on the river. The Lent was

not yet over; but what with boxes of biscuit from Maulmain, bribing a

Mussulman—a rascally fellow, who afterward came and robbed us of our

dearly-bought treasure—to obtain fowls for us secretly, and the

improved health of some of us, we began to be quite valorous. As Dr.

Judson expressed it, ‘our faces began to shine.’ Indeed, we had not

been very desponding any of the time. Never, except during an

occasional hour, when his illness was most alarming, did his courage

falter. It was delightful to be so directly in the hands of God. Then,

we had not expected much when we left Maulmain. The church in Rangoon

had been aroused, a few baptisms had taken place, and several more

hopeful conversions; and the _way_ to Ava, if not the golden city

itself, was open before us.

“The letter from Maulmain with no appropriation for our contemplated

expedition, and giving us only twenty rupees to cover the eighty-six

rupees we were even then monthly expending, came upon us like a sudden

tornado in a sunny day. Oddly enough, it had not once occurred to us

that the _money_ could be wanting. You will readily appreciate the one

broad feature of the case, which would have made the blow heavy to any

sincere Christian having much of the missionary spirit; but to my

husband there was additional bitterness in the manner of his

disappointment, and in the hands from which it came. ‘I thought they

loved me,’ he would say, mournfully, ‘and they would scarcely have

known it if I had died.’ ‘All through our troubles, I was comforted

with the thought that my brethren in Maulmain, and in America, were

praying for us, and they have never once thought of us.’ At other

times he would draw startling pictures of missionaries abandoning the

spirit of their mission, and sacrificing everything to some darling

project; and at others he would talk hopelessly of the impulsive

nature of the home movements, and then pray, in a voice of agony, that

these sins of the children of God might not be visited on the heathen.

This was an unnatural state of excitement—for _him_ peculiarly

unnatural—and he was not long in recovering from it. He very soon

began to devise apologies for everybody, and said we must remember

that so far as _we_ were concerned, or the missionary cause itself,

God had done this thing, and done it, as He always does, for good. It

was not His will that we should go to Ava then, and we had no right to

complain of the means He made use of to prevent it. He insisted, too,

that our obedience was not to be yielded grudgingly; that it must be a

cheerful acquiescence in all that God had done, and a sincere, careful

study of the indications of His providence afterward, without any

suspicion that our ways were hedged by anything harder or thornier

than His love and mercy. By the time he had an opportunity to send

letters to Maulmain and Boston, his mind was restored to its usual

serenity. My impression, however, is, that his first letter to the

Board was written in a slightly discouraged tone. He wrote more

hopefully to Maulmain, but I have sometimes thought that his

generosity took the point from his letter, and that his meaning was

not understood in saying that it was _for the best_. I think now that

they mistook resignation to God for a personal willingness to abandon

the enterprise.”

Two years afterward, only a few months before his death, he received

permission from the Board to go to Ava. It was couched in the following

resolutions:

1. “That the Executive Committee accede to the proposition of Dr.

Judson to visit Ava, for the purpose of perfecting his Burman

dictionary.

2. “That the sum of one thousand rupees be appropriated to defray the

expense of said visit.

3. “That the Foreign Secretary be requested to assure Dr. Judson of

the earnest wish of the Committee, that he should carefully avoid all

that may jeopard his life, or interfere with his invaluable labors.”

But this permission came too late. The opportunity of penetrating Burmah

proper had passed, and the aid of an excellent Burmese scholar, once a

priest at Ava, had been secured at Maulmain, and then the toiling

translator replied to the resolutions as follows:

“Considering, therefore, the uncertainty of life, and the state of my

manuscripts, so effaced by time, or so erased and interlined as to be

illegible to any other person but myself, I have thought it was my

duty to forego, for the present, what I can not but regard as an

interesting expedition, in order to drive forward the heavy work of

the dictionary in the most satisfactory manner, and without increasing

the hazard of any serious interruption.”

Thus after spending half a year of toil and suffering at Rangoon, he was

compelled to fall back upon Maulmain. He arrived there with his family

on September 5, 1847.

From the time of his return to Maulmain until his last sickness, he

worked steadily at the dictionary. Again and again in his letters he

alludes to this colossal undertaking.

“Since my return from America, with the exception of a visit of a few

months at Rangoon, I have been occupying my old stand, engaged chiefly

in preparing a Burmese dictionary, which is now in the press; that is,

the English and Burmese part. The Burmese and English part will, I

hope, be ready for the press in the course of another year. They will

make two quarto volumes of five or six hundred pages each.... I am

still hard at work on the dictionary, and shall be for above a year to

come, if I live so long. The work will make two volumes quarto,

containing above a thousand pages. No one can tell what toil it has

cost me. But I trust it will be a valuable and standard work for a

long time. It sweetens all toil to be conscious that we are laboring

for the King of kings, the Lord of lords. I doubt not we find it so,

whether in Maulmain or in Philadelphia.”...

“I have taken shelter in the house lately occupied by brother Simons,

though remote from missionary operations, where I intend to make an

effort to finish the dictionary.”

His wife, in one of her letters, thus describes his indefatigable

industry:

“_July 18, 1849._

.... “‘The goodman’ works like a galley slave; and really it quite

distresses me sometimes, but he seems to get fat on it, so I try not

to worry. He walks—or rather _runs_—like a boy over the hills, a mile

or two every morning; then down to his books, scratch-scratch,

puzzle-puzzle, and when he gets deep in the mire, out on the veranda

with your humble servant by his side, walking and talking (kan-ing we

call it in the Burman) till the point is elucidated, and then down

again—and so on till ten o’clock in the evening. It is this _walking_

which is keeping him out of the grave.”

At the same time he took a general oversight of the mission work in

Maulmain, being, in the nature of the case, a guiding and inspiring

force. He preached occasionally in the native chapel, “one sermon at

least every Lord’s day.” When his beloved fellow-missionary, Mr.

Haswell, was compelled to return home for a short visit on account of

his ill health, the whole care of the native church devolved on him.

These literary and pastoral labors were, however, lightened by social

and domestic pleasures. Though he had come to the ripe age of sixty, he

had within him the fresh heart of a boy. It has been truly said of him

that his spirit was intensely, unconquerably youthful. He loved to romp

with his children, and early in the morning to brush

“With hasty steps the dew away.”

In a life of self-sacrifice he had discovered the perennial fountain of

joy. While he followed the narrow path of stern duty, the butterfly

pleasure which the worldling chases from flower to flower, had flown

into his bosom. Byron, on his thirty-ninth birthday, breathed the sigh:

“My days are in the yellow leaf,

The flower and fruits of life are gone;

The worm, the canker, and the grief

Are mine alone.”

How different Judson’s words uttered on his death-bed:

“I suppose they think me an old man, and imagine it is nothing for one

like me to resign a life so full of trials. But I am not old—at least

in that sense; you know I am not. Oh, no man ever left the world with

more inviting prospects, with brighter hopes, or warmer

feelings—warmer feelings.”

We are indebted for the following description of his personal appearance

at this time to Dr. Wayland’s Memoir:

“In person, Dr. Judson was of about the medium height, slenderly

built, but compactly knitted together. His complexion was in youth

fair; but residence in India had given him the sallow hue common to

that climate. His hair, when in this country, was yet of a fine

chestnut, with scarcely a trace of gray. The elasticity of his

movement indicated a man of thirty, rather than of nearly sixty years

of age. His deportment was, in a remarkable degree, quiet and

self-possessed, and his manner was pointed out as perfectly well bred,

by those who consider the cultivation of social accomplishments the

serious business of life. A reviewer writes on this subject as

follows:

“‘A person overtaking Judson in one of his early morning walks, as he

strode along the pagoda-capped hills of Maulmain, would have thought

the pedestrian before him rather under-sized, and of a build showing

no great muscular development; although the pace was good and the step

firm, yet there was nothing to indicate great powers of physical

endurance, in the somewhat slight and spare frame tramping steadily in

front of the observer. The latter would scarcely suppose that he had

before him the man who, on the 25th of March, 1826, wrote, “Through

the kind interposition of our heavenly Father, our lives have been

preserved in the most imminent danger from the hand of the

executioner, and in repeated instances of most alarming illness during

my protracted imprisonment of one year and seven months; nine months

in three pairs of fetters, two months in five, six months in one, and

two months a prisoner at large.” Illness nigh unto death, and three or

five pairs of fetters to aid in weighing down the shattered and

exhausted frame, seemed a dispensation calculated for the endurance of

a far more muscular build. But meet the man, instead of overtaking

him, or, better still, see him enter a room and bare his head, and the

observer at once caught an eye beaming with intelligence, a

countenance full of life and expression. Attention could scarce fail

of being riveted on that head and face, which told at once that the

spiritual and intellectual formed the man; the physical was wholly

subordinate, and must have been borne through its trials by the more

essential elements of the individual, by the _feu sacre_ which

predominated in his disposition. Nor was this impression weakened by

his conversation. Wisdom and piety were, as might be expected in such

a man, its general tone; but there was a vivacity pervading it which

indicated strong, buoyant, though well, it may be said very severely,

disciplined animal spirits. Wit, too, was there, playful, pure, free

from malice, and a certain quiet Cervantic humor, full of benignity,

would often enliven and illustrate what he had to say on purely

temporal affairs. His conversation was thus both very able and

remarkably pleasing.’”

His reputation had extended through the whole of India, and he was held

in the highest esteem even by eminent Buddhists, as may be seen in the

following letter addressed to him by his Royal Highness, the Crown

Prince of Siam, who subsequently became king:

“_August, 1849._”

.... “I put together with my box, comprising a few artificial flowers,

two passion flower, one mogneyet, or surnamed flower, and three roses,

manufactured by most celebrated princess the daughter of late second

king, or sub-king, who was my royal uncle, for your memorial, but are,

indeed, that I don’t know what would be in your necessity from me, beg

to let me know without hesitation, I shall endeavor for your desire

how my power would allow.

“If you desire to visit Siam some time, don’t come by land, as the

strangers are prohibited to come by northern way from command of his

majesty, and you would be tributed for coming by way of three pagodas,

though traveling of strangers by it was allowed by political

authority. It would be best if you embark on board the steamer for

Singapore, and lodge little while at residence of my beloved friend

Tan Tock Sing, whom I can request to comfort or make attention to you

respectfully, and take passage by Siamese vessels that visit the

Singapore almost every month to our country, and on your ascending and

descending to and fro between this post and Singapore you need not

expend any of your own, as I can pay or request the owners of ships

for you if you let me be aware.

“Whenever do you please to send me packet or letters, or to certain of

your friend herein, you shall send by sea to Singapore with the

direction thus:

“_To His Royal Highness, T. V. Chaufa Mongkut, of Bangkok, Siam._ Kind

care of Tan Tock Sing, of Singapore.

“If you have opportunity to send by land, you shall send by hand of

Rahany messengers, or credible traveling trademen of the same, for

care of my friend the Rahany chief governor, with Siamese characters

in direction as follows [here is inserted the direction in Siamese],

because there is none interpreter of English. I am not pleasing the

Peguen, or Pegunese, or Mons messenger, who were dignified and

appointed to visit Maulmein once for a year from our court, as they

generally are proud in vain and ignorant of foreign custom, and

wondering or surprising themselves that they are embassadors from the

king improper to carry letters from others. I think if you commit your

letter or pack to them, lest they might say or do any laughable.

“All white race at Bangkok, both clergymen and merchant, are well

during time of cholera, as the missionaries were generally prevented

themselves from filling of disease by using of drinking the dissolved

mixture of calomel and opium with some spirit and oil put in water,

and others by generally use of brandy.

“On the ninth day of the current month, eight of Roman Catholic French

priests disputed away from Siamese kingdom, on account of disagreement

with the king, for ordinance the annual taxes, which were ordained

upon all inhabitants of district of Bangkok. You will hear exactly

from letters, perhaps, of your friends. I have no time to write you

more.

“I wrote you so long to fulfill your desire to hear from again as you

had requested, in your addressed, as I am seeming to be, your curious

but little as I was just studied of some way of English 4 years ago,

commencing June, 1845, during one less of which I learned from mouth

of my teacher, and on rest but by reading only.

“I have the honour to be your friend,

“T. Y. CHAUFA MONGKUT.”

To his fellow-missionaries his wide experience and affectionate

disposition made him an invaluable adviser and friend. When they found

themselves in trouble and sorrow they were sure to receive from his lips

words of comfort and counsel. To Mrs. Moore, of Maulmain, who had lost

her child, he wrote:

“DEAR SISTER: I do sympathize with you while suffering under the loss

of your little babe. It is true that it breathed the breath of life a

day or two only; but your heart—a _mother’s_ heart—feels anguish never

before conceived of; and as the coffin-lid shuts out the sweet face

from your longing gaze, and bars all further maternal care, the tears

you shed will be, O, so bitter!

“You need not my suggestion that God has done this thing in infinite

wisdom and love. While, therefore, you mourn, be thankful. A part of

yourself has gone before you to heaven. Yours is the early privilege

of furnishing a little seraph to occupy its place in Paradise. There

it will wait to welcome its mother’s arrival. The prayers you have

frequently offered for the little creature will yet all be answered;

the warm affections now apparently crushed in the bud will expand and

bloom in heavenly glory; and every succeeding age of eternity will

heighten your song of praise to God for making you the mother of a

little immortal, and then, for some special purpose, bearing it away

thus early to the grave, and to heaven.

“Your sympathizing friend and brother,

“A. JUDSON.”

And to his afflicted fellow-laborer, the Rev. Mr. Osgood, he sends these

words of comfort:

“So the light in your dwelling has gone out, my poor brother, and it

is all darkness there, only as you draw down by faith some faint

gleams of the light of heaven; and coldness has gathered round your

hearth-stone; your house is probably desolate, your children

scattered, and you a homeless wanderer over the face of the land. We

have both tasted of these bitter cups once and again; we have found

them bitter, and we have found them sweet too. Every cup stirred by

the finger of God becomes sweet to the humble believer. Do you

remember how our late wives, and sister Stevens, and perhaps some

others, used to cluster around the well-curb in the mission compound

at the close of day? I can almost see them sitting there, with their

smiling faces, as I look out of the window at which I am now writing.

Where are ours now? Clustering around the well-curb of the fountain of

living water, to which the Lamb of heaven shows them the way—reposing

in the arms of infinite love, who wipes away all their tears with His

own hand.

“Let us travel on and look up. We shall soon be there. As sure as I

write or you read these lines, we shall soon be there. Many a weary

step we may yet have to take, but we shall surely get there at last.

And the longer and more tedious the way, the sweeter will be our

repose.”

The great pressure of his public cares and other labors did not make him

moody or absent-minded at home. His love for his children was deep and

tender. To his daughter Abby, who was living at Bradford in the old

homestead of the Hasseltine family, he wrote as follows:

.... “We are a deliciously happy family; but we think much of the

three dear absent ones, and my tears frequently fall for your dear,

dear mother in her lone bed at St. Helena. And any time I enter the

burial-place here, I see the white gravestone of poor little

black-eyed Charlie. Ah, we had to leave the poor little fellow to die

in the arms of Mrs. Osgood. It was hard, but we could not help it.

God’s will be done. He is now happy with his mother. If you should

die, would you go to them too? O that I could hear of your and your

brothers’ conversion!

“You can never know how much I want to see you, how much I think of

you, how much I pray for you, always when I pray for myself. O my dear

daughter, my motherless daughter, meet me at the throne of grace; meet

me in the bosom of Jesus, and we shall live in His blessed presence on

high, together with your dear mother, lost to us for a time, but not

forever; whose spirit ever watches over you, and will rejoice with joy

yet unfelt, when you turn to the Saviour and give your heart to Him.

“Your longing, hoping father,

A. JUDSON.”

Nor does he forget his boys who are pursuing their studies in Worcester:

“Is it possible that I have letters from you at last? I had waited so

long that I began to think it would never be. And I am so glad to hear

of your welfare, and especially that you have both been under

religious impressions, and that Elnathan begins to entertain a hope in

Christ! O, this is the most blessed news. Go on, my dear boys, and not

rest until you have made your calling and election sure. I believe

that you both and Abby Ann will become true Christians, and meet me in

heaven; for I never pray without praying for your conversion, and I

think I pray in faith. Go to school, attend to your studies, be good

scholars, try to get a good education; but, O, heaven is all. Life,

life, eternal life! Without this, without an interest in the Lord of

life, you are lost, lost forever. Dear Adoniram, give your heart at

once to the Saviour. Don’t go to sleep without doing it. Try, try for

your life. Don’t mind what anybody may say to the contrary, nor how

much foolish boys may laugh at you. Love the dear Saviour, who has

loved you unto death. Dear sons, so soon as you have a good hope in

Christ that your sins are pardoned, and that Christ loves you, urge

your pastor and the church to baptize and receive you into communion.

They will hold back, thinking you are too young, and must give more

evidence. But don’t be discouraged. Push on. Determine to do it.

_Determine to stand by Christ, come what will._ That is the way to get

to heaven.... Will Elnathan tell me what little book it was that was

so much blessed to him? I have forgotten what I sent him. I have sent

you copies of your mother’s Memoir. You will be delighted to read it,

so beautifully and so truthfully is it written. Ever love to cherish

the memory of your own dear mother—how much she loved you to the last

gasp—and prepare to follow her to heaven.

“Your fond father,

A. JUDSON.”

And the two little boys who formed a part of the family group at

Maulmain, often found in their father an ardent companion in their play.

One of them well remembers how his father used to come into his room in

the morning and greet him upon his first awakening with a delicious

piece of Burmese cake, or with the joyful tidings that a rat had been

caught in a trap the night before! He wrote to Mr. Stevens in Rangoon:

“I have to hold a meeting with the rising generation every evening,

and that takes time. Henry can say, ‘Twinkle, twinkle,’ all himself,

and Edward can repeat it after his father! Giants of genius! paragons

of erudition!”

On December 24, 1847, Emily Frances Judson[68] was born at Maulmain. The

happy mother addressed to her infant the following exquisite lines,

which have been since treasured in so many hearts in many lands:

_My Bird._

“Ere last year’s moon had left the sky,

A birdling sought my Indian nest.

And folded, O, so lovingly!

Her tiny wings upon my breast.

“From morn till evening’s purple tinge

In winsome helplessness she lies;

Two rose leaves, with a silken fringe,

Shut softly on her starry eyes.

“There’s not in Ind a lovelier bird;

Broad earth owns not a happier nest;

O God, Thou hast a fountain stirred,

Whose waters never more shall rest!

“This beautiful, mysterious thing,

This seeming visitant from heaven—

This bird with the immortal wing,

To me—to me. Thy hand hath given.

“The pulse first caught its tiny stroke,

The blood its crimson hue, from mine;—

This life, which I have dared invoke,

Henceforth is parallel with thine.

“A silent awe is in my room;

I tremble with delicious fear;

The future with its light and gloom,—

Time and Eternity are here.

“Doubts—hopes, in eager tumult rise;

Hear, O my God! one earnest prayer:

Room for my bird in Paradise,

And give her angel-plumage there!”

But dark shadows began to gather around the path of the missionary. Soon

after the birth of Emily, Mrs. Judson’s health began to decline. Mr.

Judson thus wrote to her friend, Miss Anable:

“A crushing weight is upon me. I can not resist the dreadful

conviction that dear Emily is in a settled and rapid decline. For

nearly a year after the birth of baby, she enjoyed pretty good health,

and I flattered myself that she would be spared for many years. But

three or four months ago her appetite almost entirely failed her. Soon

after, baby was taken very ill, and in the midst of it our usual help

left us, and she was obliged to undergo a great deal of severe

fatigue; and I see now that she has been declining ever since. She

soon became unable to take our usual walks, and I procured a pony for

her, and she tried riding, but without any good effect. I next sent

her to Tavoy in a steamer, on a visit to the missionaries there. She

was gone ten days, and returned thinner in flesh and weaker than ever.

I now take her out every morning in a chaise, and this is all the

exercise she can bear. She is under the care of a very skilful doctor,

who appears to be making every possible effort to save her; but the

symptoms are such that I have scarcely any hope left. She is thinner

than she has ever been; strength almost gone; no appetite; various

pains in the region of the lungs; a dry cough, which has hung on

pertinaciously for two or three months. She was preparing some

‘Notes,’ to append to the Memoir, but has been obliged to leave them

unfinished, being unable to write, or even read, without aggravating

her pains. I look around in despair. If a change to any place promised

the least relief, I would go anywhere. But we are here in the

healthiest part of India, and in the dry, warm season; and she suffers

so much at sea that a voyage would hardly be recommended for itself.

My only hope is, that the doctor declares that her lungs are not

seriously affected, and that as soon as her system is fairly brought

under the influence of the course of medicine he is pursuing—digitalis

being a principal ingredient—there will be a favorable result. I shall

dissuade her from writing by this month’s mail, though she has

mentioned that she wants to write to you and her family. Nor does she

know that I am writing to you. Her family I don’t want to distress at

present. She may get better. But I suffer so much myself, that I felt

it would be some relief to sit down and tell you all about it.... When

she was at Tavoy, she made up her mind that she must die soon, and

that is now her prevailing expectation; but she contemplates the event

with composure and resignation. Within a few months she has grown much

in devotional feelings, and in longing desires to be wholly conformed

to the will of Christ. She had formerly some doubts about the

genuineness of her early conversion, but they have all left her; and

though she feels that in her circumstances prolonged life is

exceedingly desirable, she is quite willing to leave all at the

Saviour’s call. Praise be to God for His love to her.”

Little did he imagine while he cherished these doleful forebodings,

that, in the journey through the valley of the shadow of death, he was

to precede his wife by several years. In November, 1849, only a few

months after he wrote the above lines, he was attacked by the disease,

which, after a period of a little over four months, culminated in his

death. One night, while sharing with Mrs. Judson the care of one of the

children who had been taken suddenly ill, he caught a severe cold. This

settled on his lungs and produced a terrible cough with some fever.

After three or four days, he was attacked with dysentery, and before

this was subdued a congestive fever set in, from which he never

recovered. A trip down the coast of Mergui afforded only partial relief.

He tried the sea air of Amherst, but only sank the more rapidly, and

then hastened back to Maulmain. The following is his last communication

to the Board:

_To the Corresponding Secretary._

“MAULMAIN, _February_ 21, 1850.

“MY DEAR BROTHER: I can not manage a pen; so please to excuse pencil.

I have been prostrated with fever ever since the latter part of last

November, and have suffered so much that I have frequently remarked

that I was never ill in India before. Through the mercy of God, I

think I am convalescent for the last ten days; but the doctor and all

my friends are very urgent that I should take a sea voyage of a month

or two, and be absent from this a long time. May God direct in the

path of duty. My hand is failing; so I will beg to remain

“Yours affectionately,

“A. JUDSON.”

His only hope now lay in a long sea voyage. He was never so happy as

when upon the deep. The ocean breezes had never failed to invigorate

him. But it was a sore trial to part with his wife and children when

there was but little prospect of ever seeing them again. There was,

however, no alternative. A French barque, the _Aristide Marie_, was to

sail from Maulmain on the 3d of April. The dying missionary was carried

on board by his weeping disciples, accompanied only by Mr. Ranney, of

the Maulmain mission. There were unfortunate delays in going down the

river; so that several days were lost. Meantime that precious life was

ebbing rapidly away. It was not until Monday, the 8th, that the vessel

got out to sea. Then came head winds and sultry weather, and after four

days and nights of intense agony, Mr. Judson breathed his last on the

12th of April, and on the same day his body was buried in the sea. He

died within a week from the time that he parted with his wife, and

almost four months of terrible suspense elapsed before she learned of

his death. The tidings were sent to her by the Rev. Dr. Mackay, a Scotch

Presbyterian minister of Calcutta. Who can fathom her experience of

suffering during those weary months of waiting! On the 22d of April,

within three weeks of the time when she said farewell to her husband,

exactly ten days after his body without her knowledge had found its

resting-place in the sea, she gave birth to her second child, whom she

named Charles, for her father. But the same day his little spirit, as

though unwilling to linger amid such scenes of desolation, took its

upward flight to be forever united with the parent who had entered the

gates of Paradise only a little in advance. The same lyre that had

echoed such glad music upon the birth of Emily, breathed the following

soft, pensive strains of sorrow:

_Angel Charlie._

“He came—a beauteous vision—

Then vanished from my sight,

His wing one moment cleaving

The blackness of my night;

My glad ear caught its rustle,

Then sweeping by, he stole

The dew-drop that his coming

Had cherished in my soul.

“Oh, he had been my solace

When grief my spirit swayed,

And on his fragile being

Had tender hopes been stayed;

Where thought, where feeling lingered

His form was sure to glide,

And in the lone night-watches

’Twas ever by my side.

“He came; but as the blossom

Its petals closes up,

And hides them from the tempest,

Within its sheltering cup,

So he his spirit gathered

Back to his frightened breast,

And passed from earth’s grim threshold,

To be the Saviour’s guest.

“My boy—ah, me! the sweetness,

The anguish of that word!—

My boy, when in strange night-dreams

My slumbering soul is stirred;

When music floats around me,

When soft lips touch my brow,

And whisper gentle greetings,

Oh, tell me, is it thou?

“I know, by one sweet token,

My Charlie is not dead;

One golden clue he left me,

As on his track he sped;

Were he some gem or blossom

But fashioned for to-day,

My love would slowly perish

With his dissolving clay.

“Oh, by this deathless yearning,

Which is not idly given;

By the delicious nearness

My spirit feels to heaven;

By dreams that throng my night sleep,

By visions of the day,

By whispers when I’m erring,

By promptings when I pray;—

“I know this life so cherished,

Which sprang beneath my heart,

Which formed of my own being

So beautiful a part;

This precious, winsome creature,

My unfledged, voiceless dove,

Lifts now a seraph’s pinion

And warbles lays of love.

“Oh, I would not recall thee,

My glorious angel boy!

Thou needest not my bosom,

Rare bird of light and joy;

Here dash I down the tear-drops,

Still gathering in my eyes;

Blest—oh! how blest!—in adding

A seraph to the skies!”

The following account of the closing scenes in Dr. Judson’s life was

communicated to his sister by Mrs. Judson:

“MAULMAIN, _September_ 20, 1850.

“MY DEAR SISTER: Last month I could do no more than announce to you

our painful bereavement, which, though not altogether unexpected,

will, I very well know, fall upon your heart with overwhelming weight.

You will find the account of your brother’s last days on board the

_Aristide Marie_, in a letter written by Mr. Ranney, from Mauritius,

to the Secretary of the Board; and I can add nothing to it, with the

exception of a few unimportant particulars, gleaned in conversations

with Mr. Ranney and the Coringa servant. I grieve that it should be

so—that I was not permitted to watch beside him during those days of

terrible suffering; but the pain which I at first felt is gradually

yielding to gratitude for the inestimable privileges which had

previously been granted me.

“There was something exceedingly beautiful in the decline of your

brother’s life—more beautiful than I can describe, though the

impression will remain with me as a sacred legacy until I go to meet

him where suns shall never set, and life shall never end. He had been,

from my first acquaintance with him, an uncommonly spiritual

Christian, exhibiting his richest graces in the unguarded intercourse

of private life; but during his last year, it seemed as though the

light of the world on which he was entering had been sent to brighten

his upward pathway. Every subject on which we conversed, every book we

read, every incident that occurred, whether trivial or important, had

a tendency to suggest some peculiarly spiritual train of thought, till

it seemed to me that, more than ever before, ‘Christ was all his

theme.’ Something of the same nature was also noted in his preaching,

to which I then had not the privilege of listening. He was in the

habit, however, of studying his subject for the Sabbath, audibly, and

in my presence, at which time he was frequently so much affected as to

weep, and sometimes so overwhelmed with the vastness of his

conceptions as to be obliged to abandon his theme and choose another.

My own illness at the commencement of the year had brought eternity

very near to us, and rendered death, the grave, and the bright heaven

beyond it, familiar subjects of conversation. Gladly would I give you,

my dear sister, some idea of the share borne by him in those memorable

conversations; but it would be impossible to convey, even to those who

knew him best, the most distant conception of them. I believe he has

sometimes been thought eloquent, both in conversation and in the

sacred desk; but the fervid, burning eloquence, the deep pathos, the

touching tenderness, the elevation of thought, and intense beauty of

expression, which characterized those private teachings, were not only

beyond what I had ever heard before, but such as I felt sure arrested

his own attention, and surprised even himself. About this time he

began to find unusual satisfaction and enjoyment in his private

devotions, and seemed to have new objects of interest continually

rising in his mind, each of which in turn became special subjects of

prayer. Among these, one of the most prominent was the conversion of

his posterity. He remarked that he had always prayed for his children,

but that of late he had felt impressed with the duty of praying for

their children and their children’s children down to the latest

generation. He also prayed most fervently that his impressions on this

particular subject might be transferred to his sons and daughters, and

thence to their offspring, so that he should ultimately meet a long,

unbroken line of descendants before the throne of God, where all might

join together in ascribing everlasting praises to their Redeemer.

“Another subject, which occupied a large share of his attention, was

that of brotherly love. You are, perhaps, aware that, like all persons

of his ardent temperament, he was subject to strong attachments and

aversions, which he sometimes had difficulty in bringing under the

controlling influence of divine grace. He remarked that he had always

felt more or less of an affectionate interest in his brethren, as

brethren, and some of them he had loved very dearly for their personal

qualities; but he was now aware that he had never placed his standard

of love high enough. He spoke of them as children of God, redeemed by

the Saviour’s blood, watched over and guarded by His love, dear to His

heart, honored by Him in the election, and to be honored hereafter

before the assembled universe; and he said it was not sufficient to be

kind and obliging to such, to abstain from evil speaking, and make a

general mention of them in our prayers; but our attachment to them

should be of the most ardent and exalted character; it would be so in

heaven, and we lost immeasurably by not beginning now. ‘As I have

loved you, so ought ye also to love one another,’ was a precept

continually in his mind, and he would often murmur, as though

unconsciously, ‘“As I have loved you,”—“as I have loved you,”’—then

burst out with the exclamation, ‘O, the love of Christ! the love of

Christ!’

“His prayers for the mission were marked by an earnest, grateful

enthusiasm, and in speaking of missionary operations in general, his

tone was one of elevated triumph, almost of exultation; for he not

only felt an unshaken confidence in their final success, but would

often exclaim, ‘What wonders—O, what wonders God has already wrought!’

“I remarked that during this year his literary labor, which he had

never liked, and upon which he had entered unwillingly and from a

feeling of necessity, was growing daily more irksome to him; and he

always spoke of it as his ‘heavy work,’ his ‘tedious work,’ ‘that

wearisome dictionary,’ etc., though this feeling led to no relaxation

of effort. He longed, however, to find some more spiritual employment,

to be engaged in what he considered more legitimate missionary labor,

and drew delightful pictures of the future, when his whole business

would be but to preach and to pray.

“During all this time I had not observed any failure in physical

strength; and though his mental exercises occupied a large share of my

thoughts when alone, it never once occurred to me that this might be

the brightening of the setting sun; my only feeling was that of

pleasure, that one so near to me was becoming so pure and elevated in

his sentiments, and so lovely and Christ-like in his character. In

person he had grown somewhat stouter than when in America; his

complexion had a healthful hue, compared with that of his associates

generally; and though by no means a person of uniformly firm health,

he seemed to possess such vigor and strength of constitution, that I

thought his life as likely to be extended twenty years longer, as that

of any member of the mission. He continued his system of morning

exercise, commenced when a student at Andover, and was not satisfied

with a common walk on level ground, but always chose an up-hill path,

and then frequently went bounding on his way with all the exuberant

activity of boyhood.

“He was of a singularly happy temperament, although not of that even

cast which never rises above a certain level, and is never depressed.

Possessing acute sensibilities, suffering with those who suffered, and

entering as readily into the joys of the prosperous and happy, he was

variable in his moods; but religion formed such an essential element

in his character, and his trust in Providence was so implicit and

habitual, that he was never gloomy, and seldom more than momentarily

disheartened. On the other hand, being accustomed to regard all the

events of this life, however minute or painful, as ordered in wisdom,

and tending to one great and glorious end, he lived in almost constant

obedience to the apostolic injunction, ‘Rejoice evermore!’ He often

told me that although he had endured much personal suffering, and

passed through many fearful trials in the course of his eventful life,

a kind Providence had also hedged him round with precious, peculiar

blessings, so that his joys had far outnumbered his sorrows.

“Toward the close of September of last year, he said to me one

evening, ‘What deep cause have we for gratitude to God! Do you believe

there are any other two persons in the wide world so happy as we are?’

enumerating, in his own earnest manner, several sources of happiness,

in which our work as missionaries, and our eternal prospects, occupied

a prominent position. When he had finished his glowing picture, I

remarked—I scarcely know why, but there was a heavy cloud upon my

spirits that evening—‘We are certainly very happy now, but it can not

be so always. I am thinking of the time when one of us must stand

beside the bed, and see the other die.’

“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that will be a sad moment; I felt it most deeply a

little while ago, but now it would not be strange if your life were

prolonged beyond mine—though I should wish, if it were possible, to

spare you that pain. It is the one left alone who suffers, not the one

who goes to be with Christ. If it should only be the will of God that

we might go together, like young James and his wife! But He will order

all things well, and we can safely trust our future to His hands.’

“That same night we were roused from sleep by the sudden illness of

one of the children. There was an unpleasant, chilling dampness in the

air, as it came to us through the openings in the sloats above the

windows, which affected your brother very sensibly; and he soon began

to shiver so violently that he was obliged to return to his couch,

where he remained under a warm covering until morning. In the morning

he awoke with a severe cold, accompanied by some degree of fever; but

as it did not seem very serious, and our three children were all

suffering from a similar cause, we failed to give it any especial

attention. From that time he was never well, though in writing to you

before, I think I dated the commencement of his illness from the month

of November, when he laid aside his studies. I know that he regarded

this attack as trifling; and yet one evening he spent a long time in

advising me with regard to my future course, if I should be deprived

of his guidance, saying that it is always wise to be prepared for

exigencies of this nature. After the month of November, he failed

gradually, occasionally rallying in such a manner as to deceive us

all, but at each relapse sinking lower than at the previous one,

though still full of hope and courage, and yielding ground only inch

by inch, as compelled by the triumphant progress of disease. During

some hours of every day he suffered intense pain; but his naturally

buoyant spirits and uncomplaining disposition led him to speak so

lightly of it, that I used sometimes to fear that the doctor, though a

very skilful man, would be fatally deceived.

“As his health declined, his mental exercises at first seemed

deepened; and he gave still larger portions of his time to prayer,

conversing with the utmost freedom on his daily progress, and the

extent of his self-conquest. Just before our trip to Mergui, which

took place in January, he looked up from his pillow one day with

sudden animation, and said to me earnestly, ‘I have gained the victory

at last. I love every one of Christ’s redeemed, as I believe He would

have me love them—in the same manner, though not probably to the same

degree, as we shall love one another in heaven; and gladly would I

prefer the meanest of His creatures, who bears His name, before

myself.’ This he said in allusion to the text, ‘In honor preferring

one another,’ on which he had frequently dwelt with great emphasis.

After further similar conversation, he concluded: ‘And now here I lie

at peace with all the world, and what is better still, at peace with

my own conscience. I know that I am a miserable sinner in the sight of

God, with no hope but in the blessed Saviour’s merits; but I can not

think of any particular fault, any peculiarly besetting sin, which it

is now my duty to correct. Can you tell me of any?’

“And truly, from this time no other word would so well express his

state of feeling as that one of his own choosing—_peace_. He had no

particular exercises afterward, but remained calm and serene, speaking

of himself daily as a great sinner, who had been overwhelmed with

benefits, and declaring that he had never in all his life before had

such delightful views of the unfathomable love and infinite

condescension of the Saviour as were now daily opening before him. ‘O,

the love of Christ! the love of Christ!’ he would suddenly exclaim,

while his eye kindled, and the tears chased each other down his

cheeks; ‘we can not understand it now—but what a beautiful study for

eternity!’

“After our return from Mergui, the doctor advised a still further

trial of the effects of sea air and sea bathing; and we accordingly

proceeded to Amherst, where we remained nearly a month. This to me was

the darkest period of his illness—no medical adviser, no friend, at

hand, and he daily growing weaker and weaker. He began to totter in

walking, clinging to the furniture and walls, when he thought he was

unobserved (for he was not willing to acknowledge the extent of his

debility), and his wan face was of a ghastly paleness. His sufferings,

too, were sometimes fearfully intense, so that, in spite of his

habitual self-control, his groans would fill the house. At other times

a kind of lethargy seemed to steal over him, and he would sleep almost

incessantly for twenty-four hours, seeming annoyed if he were aroused

or disturbed. Yet there were portions of the time when he was

comparatively comfortable, and conversed intelligently; but his mind

seemed to revert to former scenes, and he tried to amuse me with

stories of his boyhood, his college days, his imprisonment in France,

and his early missionary life. He had a great deal also to say on his

favorite theme, ‘the love of Christ’; but his strength was too much

impaired for any continuous mental effort. Even a short prayer, made

audibly, exhausted him to such a degree that he was obliged to

discontinue the practice.

“At length I wrote to Maulmain, giving some expression of my anxieties

and misgivings, and our kind missionary friends, who had from the

first evinced all the tender interest and watchful sympathy of the

nearest kindred, immediately sent for us—the doctor advising a sea

voyage. But as there was no vessel in the harbor bound for a port

sufficiently distant, we thought it best, in the meantime, to remove

from our old dwelling, which had long been condemned as unhealthy, to

another mission-house, fortunately empty. This change was, at first,

attended with the most beneficial results; and our hopes revived so

much, that we looked forward to the approaching rainy season for

entire restoration. But it lasted only a little while; and then both

of us became convinced that, though a voyage at sea involved much that

was exceedingly painful, it yet presented the only prospect of

recovery, and could not, therefore, without a breach of duty, be

neglected.

“‘O, if it were only the will of God to take me now—to let me die

here!’ he repeated over and over again, in a tone of anguish, while we

were considering the subject. ‘I can not, can not go! This is almost

more than I can bear! Was there ever suffering like our suffering?’

and the like broken expressions, were continually falling from his

lips. But he soon gathered more strength of purpose; and after the

decision was fairly made, he never hesitated for a moment, rather

regarding the prospect with pleasure. I think the struggle which this

resolution cost injured him very materially; though probably it had no

share in bringing about the final result. God, who saw the end from

the beginning, had counted out his days, and they were hastening to a

close. Until this time he had been able to stand, and to walk slowly

from room to room; but as he one evening attempted to rise from his

chair, he was suddenly deprived of his small remnant of muscular

strength, and would have fallen to the floor but for timely support.

“From that moment his decline was rapid. As he lay helplessly upon his

couch, and watched the swelling of his feet, and other alarming

symptoms, he became very anxious to commence his voyage, and I felt

equally anxious to have his wishes gratified. I still hoped he might

recover; the doctor said the chances of life and death were, in his

opinion, equally balanced. And then he always loved the sea so dearly!

There was something exhilarating to him in the motion of a vessel, and

he spoke with animation of getting free from the almost suffocating

atmosphere incident to the hot season, and drinking in the fresh sea

breezes. He talked but little more, however, than was necessary to

indicate his wants, his bodily sufferings being too great to allow of

conversation; but several times he looked up to me with a bright

smile, and exclaimed, as heretofore, ‘O, the love of Christ! the love

of Christ!’

“I found it difficult to ascertain, from expressions casually dropped

from time to time, his real opinion with regard to his recovery; but I

thought there was some reason to doubt whether he was fully aware of

his critical situation. I did not suppose he had any preparation to

make at this late hour, and I felt sure that, if he should be called

ever so unexpectedly, he would not enter the presence of his Maker

with a ruffled spirit; but I could not bear to have him go away

without knowing how doubtful it was whether our next meeting would not

be in eternity; and perhaps, too, in my own distress, I might still

have looked for words of encouragement and sympathy to a source which

had never before failed.

“It was late in the night, and I had been performing some little

sick-room offices, when suddenly he looked up to me, and exclaimed,

‘This will never do! You are killing yourself for me, and I will not

permit it. You must have some one to relieve you. If I had not been

made selfish by suffering, I should have insisted upon it long ago.’

“He spoke so like himself, with the earnestness of health, and in a

tone to which my ear had of late been a stranger, that for a moment I

felt almost bewildered with sudden hope. He received my reply to what

he had said with a half-pitying, half-gratified smile; but in the

meantime his expression had changed—the marks of excessive debility

were again apparent, and I could not forbear adding, ‘It is only a

little while, you know.’

“‘Only a little while,’ he repeated mournfully; ‘this separation is a

bitter thing, but it does not distress me now as it did—I am too

weak.’ ‘You have no reason to be distressed,’ I answered, ‘with such

glorious prospects before you. You have often told me it is the one

left alone who suffers, not the one who goes to be with Christ.’ He

gave me a rapid, questioning glance, then assumed for several moments

an attitude of deep thought. Finally, he slowly unclosed his eyes, and

fixing them on me, said in a calm, earnest tone, ‘I do not believe I

am going to die. I think I know why this illness has been sent upon

me; I needed it; I feel that it has done me good; and it is my

impression that I shall now recover, and be a better and more useful

man.’

“‘Then it is your wish to recover?’ I inquired. ‘If it should be the

will of God, yes. I should like to complete the dictionary, on which I

have bestowed so much labor, now that it is so nearly done; for though

it has not been a work that pleased my taste, or quite satisfied my

feelings, I have never underrated its importance. Then after that come

all the plans that we have formed. O, I feel as if I were only just

beginning to be prepared for usefulness.’

“‘It is the opinion of most of the mission,’ I remarked, ‘that you

will not recover.’ ‘I know it is,’ he replied; ‘and I suppose they

think me an old man, and imagine it is nothing for one like me to

resign a life so full of trials. But I am not old—at least in that

sense; you know I am not. O, no man ever left this world, with more

inviting prospects, with brighter hopes or warmer feelings—warmer

feelings,’ he repeated, and burst into tears.[69] His face was

perfectly placid, even while the tears broke away from the closed

lids, and rolled, one after another, down to the pillow. There was no

trace of agitation or pain in his manner of weeping, but it was

evidently the result of acute sensibilities, combined with great

physical weakness. To some suggestions which I ventured to make, he

replied: ‘It is not that—I know all that, and feel it in my inmost

heart. Lying here on my bed, when I could not talk, I have had such

views of the loving condescension of Christ, and the glories of

heaven, as I believe are seldom granted to mortal man. It is not

because I shrink from death that I wish to live, neither is it because

the ties that bind me here, though some of them are very sweet, bear

any comparison with the drawings I at times feel toward heaven; but a

few years would not be missed from my eternity of bliss, and I can

well afford to spare them, both for your sake and for the sake of the

poor Burmans. I am not tired of my work, neither am I tired of the

world; yet when Christ calls me home, I shall go with the gladness of

a boy bounding away from his school. Perhaps I feel something like the

young bride, when she contemplates resigning the pleasant associations

of her childhood for a yet dearer home—though only a very little like

her, for _there is no doubt resting on my future_.’ ‘Then death would

not take you by surprise,’ I remarked, ‘if it should come even before

you could get on board ship?’ ‘O, no,’ he said, ‘death will never take

me by surprise—do not be afraid of that—I feel _so strong in Christ_.

He has not led me so tenderly thus far, to forsake me at the very gate

of heaven. No, no; I am willing to live a few years longer, if it

should be so ordered; and if otherwise, I am willing and glad to die

now. I leave myself entirely in the hands of God, to be disposed of

according to His holy will.’

“The next day some one mentioned, in his presence, that the native

Christians were greatly opposed to the voyage, and that many other

persons had a similar feeling with regard to it. I thought he seemed

troubled, and after the visitor had withdrawn, I inquired if he still

felt as when he conversed with me the night previous. He replied, ‘O,

yes; that was no evanescent feeling. It has been with me, to a greater

or less extent, for years, and will be with me, I trust, to the end. I

am ready to go _to-day_—if it should be the will of God, this very

hour; but I am not _anxious_ to die; at least when I am not beside

myself with pain.’

“‘Then why are you so desirous to go to sea? I should think it would

be a matter of indifference to you.’ ‘No,’ he answered quietly, ‘my

judgment tells me it would be wrong not to go; the doctor says

_criminal_. I shall certainly die here; if I go away I may possibly

recover. There is no question with regard to duty in such a case; and

I do not like to see any hesitation, even though it springs from

affection.’

“He several times spoke of a burial at sea, and always as though the

prospect were agreeable. It brought, he said, a sense of freedom and

expansion, and seemed far pleasanter than the confined, dark, narrow

grave, to which he had committed so many that he loved. And he added,

that although his burial-place was a matter of no real importance, yet

he believed it was not in human nature to be altogether without a

choice.

“I have already given you an account of the embarkation, of my visits

to him while the vessel remained in the river, and of our last sad,

silent parting; and Mr. Ranney has finished the picture. You will

find, in this closing part, some dark shadows that will give you pain;

but you must remember that his present felicity is enhanced by those

very sufferings; and we should regret nothing that serves to brighten

his crown in glory. I ought also to add, that I have gained pleasanter

impressions in conversation with Mr. Ranney than from his written

account; but it would be difficult to convey them to you; and, as he

whom they concern was accustomed to say of similar things, ‘you will

learn it all in heaven.’

“During the last hour of your sainted brother’s life, Mr. Ranney bent

over him, and held his hand, while poor Panapah stood at a little

distance weeping bitterly. The table had been spread in the cuddy, as

usual, and the officers did not know what was passing in the cabin,

till summoned to dinner. Then they gathered about the door, and

watched the closing scene with solemn reverence. Now—thanks to a

merciful God!—his pains had left him; not a momentary spasm disturbed

his placid face, nor did the contraction of a muscle denote the least

degree of suffering; the agony of death was passed, and his wearied

spirit was turning to its rest in the bosom of the Saviour. From time

to time he pressed the hand in which his own was resting, his clasp

losing in force at each successive pressure; while his shortened

breath—though there was no struggle, no gasping, as if it came and

went with difficulty—gradually grew softer and fainter, until it died

upon the air—and he was gone. Mr. Ranney closed the eyes, and composed

the passive limbs; the ship’s officers stole softly from the door, and

the neglected meal was left upon the board untasted.

Of these days, Mr. Ranney thus wrote to the Corresponding Secretary:

“Dr. Judson was carried on board the French barque _Aristide Marie_,

bound for the Isle of Bourbon, with the reluctant assent of his

friends, his physician having recommended such a voyage as the only

possible means of restoration. It being desirable to get to sea as

soon as practicable, application was made to the commissioner of the

provinces, to permit the barque to be towed out of the river by the

steamer _Proserpine_, which was that morning to proceed southward with

troops. Permission was granted, and on Wednesday, April 3, by the

kindness of Captain Lawford, commandant of artillery, a palanquin and

bearers took Dr. Judson, then too weak to stand, and carried him on

board. There they learned, with surprise and sorrow, that the steamer

would not take them in tow. The commander of the troops claimed that,

while employed as a military transport, the vessel was not subject to

the commissioner’s order, and on the ground that it might endanger the

lives of the soldiers, declined to comply with it. The consequence of

this collision of authorities was, that, instead of getting to sea in

twenty-four hours, they were five days in reaching Amherst, and it was

six days before the pilot left the vessel. How much was thus lost it

is impossible to conjecture.

“The delay permitted Mrs. Judson (who would gladly have accompanied

her husband, though at the hazard of her life, if he had consented),

and Mr. Stilson, and Mr. and Mrs. Stevens to visit him repeatedly, and

minister to his comfort. He bore the fatigue of embarkation very well,

and on Thursday took more refreshment than for several days previous.

This gave hope of a favorable change; but on Friday he was not as

well, and his two Burmese assistants, Ko En and Ko Shway Doke,

disciples of many years’ standing, who remained on board till the

pilot left the vessel, requested that he might be taken back to

Maulmain. They were confident he was near his end, and could not

endure the thought of his burial in the ocean; they wanted his grave

to be made where they and the other disciples could look upon it.[70]

But any attempt to do this would have proved fatal, and there was no

choice but to fulfil their original purpose, Mr. Stilson reminding the

affectionate disciples of the death and unknown burial-place of Moses.

“On Saturday he was perceptibly weaker. Such was his pain that he said

he would willingly die if he could. On Sunday, being more calm and

free from pain, he conversed freely and more at length than he had

been able to do, describing somewhat minutely the causes of his pain.

He said that no one could conceive the intensity of his sufferings.

Death would have been a glad relief. The idea of death caused no

peculiar emotion of either fear or transport. His mind was so affected

by suffering that he could not think, or even pray. Nay, he could not

think of his wife and family. He had bitter sorrow in parting with

them at first; but in Mrs. Judson’s subsequent visit, speech had been

almost denied him; and when they parted the day before, perhaps the

last time on earth, it was without a word, and almost without a

thought, so entirely had pain absorbed every faculty. Yet he felt he

had nothing to complain of. He knew it was the will of God, and

therefore right. Alluding to the swelling of his feet, he said: ‘The

natives are frightened when they see this. They regard it as a sure

sign of approaching death; but I do not. I have talked with the doctor

about this, and have myself remarked, at different times, the swelling

and subsiding. I still feel that there is so much of life in me that I

shall recover.’

“On Monday, the 6th, at half-past three o’clock P.M., the pilot, with

the two assistants above named, and Moung Shway-moung, of the Amherst

church, left the ship. At the request of Dr. Judson, Mr. Ranney wrote

to Mrs. Judson his opinion of himself, that ‘he went out to sea with a

strong feeling that he should recover.’ But on the same day the

violence of his pains returned, and his left side was swollen much,

from which he gained partial relief. On Tuesday morning, the

Tenasserim coast being yet visible, they enjoyed a fresh and

invigorating breeze; but a violent thunder-storm came on, followed by

a calm. For a short time Dr. Judson suffered less pain; but a hiccough

increased upon him. He said, ‘This hiccough is killing me; can you

think of anything to do for it?’ He afterward slept considerably, and

took some slight refreshment; but in the afternoon a new symptom

appeared, which continued to the last—frequent vomiting and an

inability to retain anything upon his stomach.

“During the night and the next day the weather was exceedingly hot.

Dr. Judson refused all nourishment, and inclined to sleep, probably on

account of the laudanum and ether administered. He said he should

weary them but little longer. The captain gave several prescriptions

without effect; on which he said, ‘It is of but little consequence. I

do not wish any one to think I died because all was not done that

could be done for me. Medicine is of no use. The disease will take its

course.’ While suffering the acute pain which invariably preceded

vomiting, he said, ‘O that I could die at once, and go immediately

into Paradise, where there is no pain.’

“On the evening of Wednesday, as Mr. Ranney was sitting by his

bedside, he said, ‘I am glad you are here. I do not feel so abandoned.

You are my only kindred now—the only one on board who loves Christ, I

mean; and it is a great comfort to have one near me who loves Christ.’

‘I hope,’ said Mr. Ranney, ‘you feel that Christ is now near,

sustaining you.’ ‘O, yes,’ he replied, ‘_it is all right there_. I

believe He gives me just so much pain and suffering as is necessary to

fit me to die—to make me submissive to His will.’ The captain—who

spoke but little English, but took unwearied pains to make himself

understood by a frequent resort to a French and English dictionary,

and was a pattern of kindness and benevolence—offered another

prescription; but Dr. Judson thanked him, and declined. He spoke of

the invigorating influence of the wind, and expressed a fear that they

would lose it during the night; which proved true. After midnight

there was a dead calm, and a very oppressive atmosphere. At two

o’clock his breathing became very difficult; but afterward he breathed

more freely.

“On Thursday morning his eyes had a dull appearance, remained

half-closed while sleeping, and seemed glassy and death-like. His

stomach rejected all refreshment. At ten and twelve o’clock he took

some ether, which he said did him good. After vomiting, with the

suffering which preceded it, he said, ‘O, how few there are who suffer

such great torment—who die so hard!’ During all the night his

sufferings increased, so that it was inexpressibly painful to behold

his agony—sometimes calling for water, which gave relief only while he

was drinking it, to be followed by the pain of ejecting it. At

midnight he said his fever had returned. His extremities were cold,

his head hot. It was the fever of death. His weakness was such that he

now seldom spoke, except to indicate some want, which he more

frequently did by signs.

“During the forenoon of Friday, the 12th, his countenance was that of

a dying man. About noon he showed some aberration of mind; but it was

only transient. At three o’clock he said, in Burman, to Panapah, a

native servant, ‘It is done; I am going.’ Shortly after, he made a

sign with his hand downward, which was not understood; drawing Mr.

Ranney’s ear close to his mouth, he said, convulsively, ‘Brother

Ranney, will you bury me? bury me?—quick! quick!’ These words were

prompted, perhaps, by the thought of burial in the sea crossing his

mind. Mr. Ranney here being called out for a moment, Dr. Judson spoke

to the servant in English, and also in Burman, of Mrs. Judson, bidding

him ‘take care of poor mistress’; and at fifteen minutes past four

o’clock he breathed his last. ‘His death,’ says Mr. Ranney, ‘was like

falling asleep. Not the movement of a muscle was perceptible, and the

moment of the going out of life was indicated only by his ceasing to

breathe. A gentle pressure of the hand, growing more and more feeble

as life waned, showed the peacefulness of the spirit about to take its

homeward flight.’

“It was first determined to keep the body until Saturday for burial;

but Mr. Ranney was admonished of the necessity of immediate

preparations. A strong plank coffin was soon constructed; several

buckets of sand were poured in to make it sink; and at eight o’clock

in the evening the crew assembled, the larboard port was opened, and

in perfect silence, broken only by the voice of the captain, all that

was mortal of Dr. Judson was committed to the deep, in latitude

thirteen degrees north, longitude ninety-three degrees east, nine days

after their embarkation from Maulmain, and scarcely three days out of

sight of the mountains of Burmah.”

[Illustration:

MRS. EMILY C. JUDSON AND HER FAMILY.

_From an Ambrotype taken at Hamilton, N. Y., in 1853._

]

The record of these last days may be fittingly closed, by a poem written

by Mrs. Judson after her husband’s departure from Maulmain:

_Sweet Mother._

“The wild south-west monsoon has risen,

On broad gray wings of gloom,

While here from out my dreary prison

I look as from a tomb—alas!

My heart another tomb.

“Upon the low thatched roof the rain

With ceaseless patter falls:

My choicest treasures bear its stain,

Mould gathers on the walls—would Heaven

’Twere _only_ on the walls!

“Sweet mother, I am here alone,

In sorrow and in pain;

The sunshine from my heart has flown,

It feels the driving rain—ah, me!

The chill, and mould, and rain.

“Four laggard months have wheeled their round

Since love upon it smiled,

And everything of earth has frowned

On thy poor stricken child,—sweet friend;

Thy weary, suffering child.

“I’d watched my loved one night and day,

Scarce breathing when he slept,

And as my hopes were swept away,

I’d in his bosom wept.—O God!

How had I prayed and wept!

“They bore him from me to the ship

As bearers bear the dead;

I kissed his speechless, quivering lip,

And left him on his bed—alas!

It seemed a coffin bed.

“Then, mother, little Charlie came,

Our beautiful, fair boy,

With my own father’s cherished name,—

But O, he brought no joy,—my child

Brought mourning and no joy.

“His little grave I can not see,

Though weary months have fled

Since pitying lips bent over me,

And whispered, ‘He is dead.’—Ah, me!

’Tis dreadful to be dead!

“I do not mean for one like me,

So weary, worn, and weak,—

Death’s shadowy paleness seems to be

Even now upon my cheek,—his seal

On form, and brow, and cheek.

“But for a bright-winged bird like him,

To hush his joyous song,

And prisoned in a coffin dim,

Join death’s pale phantom throng,—my boy

To join that grisly throng!

“O mother, I can scarcely bear

To think of this to-day:

It was so exquisitely fair,

That little form of clay,—my heart

Still lingers by his clay.

And when for one loved far, far more

Come thickly-gathering tears,

My star of faith is clouded o’er,

I sink beneath my fears,—sweet friend,

My heavy weight of fears.

O but to feel thy fond arms twine

Around me once again!

It almost seems those lips of thine

Might kiss away the pain—might soothe

This dull, cold, heavy pain.

“But, gentle mother, through life’s storms

I may not lean on thee;

For helpless, cowering little forms,

Cling trustingly to me.—Poor babes!

To have no guide but me.

“With weary foot and broken wing,

With bleeding heart and sore,

Thy dove looks backward sorrowing

But seeks the ark no more—thy breast

Seeks never, never more.

“Sweet mother, for the exile pray,

That loftier faith be given;

Her broken reeds all swept away,

That she may rest in heaven—her soul

Grow strong in Christ and heaven.

“All fearfully, all tearfully,

Alone and sorrowing,

My dim eye lifted to the sky—

Fast to the cross I cling—O Christ!

To Thy dear cross I cling.”

-----

Footnote 67:

About twenty-five dollars.

Footnote 68:

Now the wife of the Rev. T. A. T. Hanna, of Plantsville, Conn.

Footnote 69:

“There is nothing outside of inspiration more touchingly and

sublimely beautiful; nothing which, in its blending of the gushing

tenderness of the man, with the hallowed raptures of the saint,

gives a juster conception of the real elements of heaven.”—_Dr.

Kendrick’s “Life and Letters of Emily C. Judson._”

Footnote 70:

Mr. Judson’s departure caused the deepest sorrow among the disciples

whom he left behind. The following story is told concerning Ko Dwah,

one of the deacons in the native church at Maulmain: “This man was

devotedly attached to Dr. Judson. Both were taken sick at nearly the

same time, so that during their illness they met but once, and the old

deacon could not, with the other disciples, accompany the dying pastor

to the wharf. As soon as Dr. Judson removed, the house which he

occupied, and which had long been condemned by Dr. Morton for its

unhealthiness, was removed. Ko Dwah was not aware of the circumstance,

though living in the vicinity, until the spot was left bare. He then

insisted upon leaving his bed to look upon the ruin. He hobbled on his

staff across the road, ascended the chapel steps with great

difficulty, and then sitting down, rested his chin on his palms, and

burst into a loud, wild sort of lamentation, like the wailing at a

funeral. Neither mind nor body ever recovered from the shock, though

he lingered on for some time longer.”